Posts from Weekend Meditation

This morning, while puttering around my kitchen, I discovered that the rock hard avocados purchased last week from a couple selling them on a nearby street corner (three for a dollar!) had finally ripened. A gentle squeeze tells me they're probably perfect. The radishes I forgot in my market bag, however, seem to have gone a little beyond ripe, although they may be good for sautéing. And the bread I brought home on Thursday will probably be ready for bread crumbs on Monday if I don't finish it up by then.

As cooks, the spare and simple truth that all things are in a constant state of change is something we deal with on a daily basis.

In my pantry right now, there among the cans of tomato paste and chicken noodle soup, is a box of rich, decadent sipping chocolate, a bag of dried porcini, and a little tin of handmade candied violets. In my closet, a pair of fancy velvet heels and a gorgeous cashmere sweater mingle with the cotton shirts and clogs. Tucked away in a drawer, a small vial of a favorite, very expensive perfume waits for the special day that I will dab it on my wrists. Besides being wonderful and special, all these things have one other thing in common: I never use them. And lately I've been thinking that this has got to change.

Anyone who has cooked a meal has had to come to terms with the fact that while it may have taken hours (days even) to create this meal, it will likely vanish down the throats of their loved ones in a fraction of that time. In fact, if it didn't vanish quickly and with a certain amount of relish, we would worry that it wasn't good and that our efforts had been wasted. The very reason why we create our lovely meal (hunger and deliciousness) is exactly what will destroy it.

I started to take an online quiz the other day but stopped short when it asked me what kind of cook I thought I was. My choices were something like Generous (enthusiastic and sharing), Methodical (likes long, complex kitchen projects), Innovative (goes for the new and unusual), Competitive (into impressing and being the best, having the best), Healthy (interested in freshness and nutrition). I was only allowed to pick one but what I ended up clicking on was the button to take me away from the quiz. Each choice was both too much and not enough, and the idea of choosing just one was frustrating.

The other day my landlady knocked on my back door to deliver a brown paper package (yes, tied up in string!) full of handmade corn tortillas from a favorite tacqueria up in Sonoma County. The tortillas had been wrapped up while they were hot off the griddle and the package still had a little warmth left in it even though it had sat for over an hour in the car back to our home in Oakland. It rested in my hands with a weight that felt very reassuring, as if the tortillas were still somehow connected to the corn in the fields and the warm hands of their maker. Good solid basic food. My favorite kind, and a strong reminder that there is almost always enough.

See that picture above? That's the beginning of what would end up being several jars of marmalade that my friend Serena and I made a few weeks ago. We both had very little experience in making marmalade but Serena has a real pioneering spirit, so we just dove right in. Or actually, she dove right in and I followed. Inspired by the limes that were ripening on a tree right outside my front door, she brought some of her own homegrown meyer lemons and suggested lemon-lime for our marmalade's flavor. Yes! And so we set off on the somewhat risky but infinitely rewarding path of figuring out how it was done.

It's sad, but these front yard foraged rose hips did not become jelly.

I have been experiencing a lot of kitchen failures lately, including a rather large pot of boiled rose hips and old quince that was supposed to turn into rose hip jelly but instead ended up a rather sad, watery, flavorless mess. There were several other inedible experiments as well, a real losing streak of which I will spare you the awful details. But the great thing about being a cook is that even if you've lost your mojo, you still have to cook because you still have to eat. You can't just toss your hair and say 'oh, I think I'll move on to buying antique motorcycles and fixing them up in my backyard now' because the next day you have to get up and at the very least make toast. (I'm sure you're aware that toast is fraught with potential failure.) You have to keep cooking even though you cannot. And we all know what happens when you keep at it: eventually you round the bend, something shifts, and it gets better. Cooking doesn't let you be a quitter.

For me, going to the farmers' market is always a pleasant experience, even in the cold wintry rain, even when the summer crowds are big and people aren't always behaving. I go for the quality of the produce, for the intimate experience of knowing where my food comes from, for the way a farmers' market makes me feel a part of my community. I go because I'll always run into friends and neighbors. I go for the extraordinary eggs that will sell out if I don't get there right as the market opens. I go because I want to support farmers who are growing a diverse variety of vegetables and are often experimenting with interesting new varieties or bringing back an old heirloom. I go for the stroll and the delight of shopping outdoors. And, it turns out, I go for the poetry.

Unless you're a professional chef, most of your cooking happens in your home, behind closed doors. Occasionally friends come over or even rarer, a stranger might tag along with them. You might volunteer to cook for a shelter or a church event now and then, or bring a favorite dish to a potluck or picnic. But mostly our cooking and eating is an intensely private family affair kept inside the confines of our homes. I wonder what would happen if that wasn't always the case?

Sometimes I am struck by the sheer physicality of cooking. I know this is an obvious statement but it's one of those things that's so obvious, I forget to appreciate it most of the time. But after sitting at the computer for hours on end, my body achy and unused, my head all tangled up with words and ideas and concepts, it feels really good to lift and bend and stretch around in the kitchen. It feels good to be solidly in the physical world.